1930s, The

This series of ten books, each devoted to a decade of Britishlife and containing around 300 photographs from PA Photos? hugearchives, spans the whole of the 20th Century. Hand-picked by PAPhotos? own archivists, most of these images have lain unseen sincethey were used as news pictures when they were first taken. Eachimage has been scanned especially for these books, many from glassplates, ensuring the best possible quality of reproduction. It iseasy, looking back, to imagine a past neatly partitioned intoclearly defined periods and dominated by landmarks: wars, politicalupheaval and economic trends. But the archive tells a differentstory: alongside the major events that constitute formal historyare found the smaller things that had equal - if not greater -significance for ordinary people at the time. And while thephotographers were working for that moment?s news rather thanposterity, the camera is an undiscriminating eye that recordseverything in its view: to modern eyes it is often the backgroundsof these pictures, not their intended subjects, which provide thegreatest fascination.